Hi i understand your point. There is a lot of marketing in the audiophile sector.
People listen more with the eyes than with the ears. But some differences there must be between a cheap product and an expensive one.
Also in terms of sound. They cannot be identical sounding, i guess.
Regards, gino
Well if you look at BOM costs differences between cheap and expensive most of the difference in the pretty box and the shiny connectors. And the ubiquitous beer can sized blingycaps(tm).
This is not always the case...but may be more times than we might want to admit...
This is not always the case...but may be more times than we might want to admit...
It seems to depend on what 'well engineered' means. There are at least two schools of thought - one engineers by the currently fashionable crop of numbers (THD+N and the like) and the other engineers by how the thing sounds. For the former then yes, almost certainly they can sound different while delivering about the same numbers, with the latter then at least one isn't well engineered if the two sound different.
Internet places like HD Tracks and other HD downloads are amazing. Those files and a good playback DAC like the BenchMark 2 and you are There.
THx-RNMarsh
Hi and thanks a lot for the very helpful advice.
sorry for trivializing a very complex issue ... but i have come to the conclusion that bad digital is due, a lot, to bad power supply quality feeding clock circuits and dac chips (analog stages are more robust towards power supply quality. Their PSRR is usually quite high).
I remember modders of digital players addressing mainly power supplies of the players using better regulators, better caps and diodes and so on.
And always these mods improved the overall sound.
So i think that digital gives bad sound especially when it is fed badly.
Because the noise gets mixed in the sound more than in the case of analog equipment.
I would like one day to listen to a digital player battery powered ... i would be very curious to listen ... very.
Maybe i am wrong.
Thanks again, gino
sorry for trivializing a very complex issue ... but i have come to the conclusion that bad digital is due, a lot, to bad power supply quality feeding clock circuits and dac chips (analog stages are more robust towards power supply quality. Their PSRR is usually quite high).
I remember modders of digital players addressing mainly power supplies of the players using better regulators, better caps and diodes and so on.
And always these mods improved the overall sound.
So i think that digital gives bad sound especially when it is fed badly.
Because the noise gets mixed in the sound more than in the case of analog equipment.
I would like one day to listen to a digital player battery powered ... i would be very curious to listen ... very.
Maybe i am wrong.
Thanks again, gino
If both are engineered AND you compare ears-only, you may find that your guess was incorrect. Some expensive units are "designed" and have audible defects, which some folks may like- or convince themselves that they like.
Nope, you're very much heading in the right direction, gino. Making the environment in which the digital sound is being converted to analogue as clean as you can possibly achieve may be the crucial step in getting top class sound. Regarding battery operated, a friend used a simple Cowon media player as his source, and this easily knocked a modified Quad CD player off its perch; he still had to pay great attention to precisely how the player was configured to get optimum sound, but if all was correctly set it did an excellent job.
Hi again. You mean that many people tend to like audible defects ?
this is interesting. But still my impression is that with the average analog the music stands out more than with the average digital, even in presence of noise. Maybe it is just a mine impression.
With digital the sound is often shrinked ... collapsed. With analog is more spacious.
Thanks again for the advice. I am learning here.
Regards, gino
Hi and thank you for the good news. I am quite sold on digital and i really would like to get a satisfactory sound.
Thanks a lot for the very interesting information.
Do you remember the model of the player ? interesting.
Let's say that very silent power supplies can be designed and built these days for digital. However it is not a trivial task given the garbage present in the mains.
I am trying to learn more about power supplies practically only for these unit i have attached here above.
It just needs some 10VDC/1A of extremely clean power.
Batteries would be a natural choice ... they allow for a complete isolation from the dirty AC in the mains, much better of any power conditioner on the planet.
but they are not very handy at all.
So i am looking for some kit with extreme low noise, especially HF noise.
If i can find one i feel i will be done because the master clock is set in this unit and not in the dac.
Then just a decent dac after that converter and a decent pc before it will be needed.
Thanks alot again for confirming a sensation.
Kind regards, gino
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I am sorry to say this is incorrect, noise is more of a problem with analogue because it adds to the signal, digital has a better tolerance of noise....
This is why sensors etc. now are ADCed at source and the signal transferred digitally rather than by some analogue method such as 4-20mA current loop.
Most modding is not backed up by any evidence other than ears only and perceived change (it may not be a real improvement as adding noise can be perceived as better.
With all digital systems as long as the data delivery is correct (and it is easy to deliver digital data correctly with basic engineering) then it is only at the final DAC stage that you have to worry about jitter and even here I suspect some exaggeration of the amount of jitter than is audible. A digital data packet is the same however it is delivered and today doing this with audio signals is pretty trivial as with many other digital data transport systems.
As to batteries and digital not that simple or always the best choice, again you need regulation after the battery for the best result, and again designing a suitable power supply using engineering techniques is not rocket science.
A lot of audio seems to be chasing invisible demons these days instead of looking at the engineering aspect of a design.
Again as to digital if the data gets there intact all you have to worry about is the conversion at the DAC... maybe if some of the myths and beliefs were put to bed audio as a hobby would attract younger blood and bigger numbers....
I wonder how many of these differences and improvements disappear when proper testing methods are used.....
As a point in space Musical Fidelity V90-DAC D/A processor Measurements | Stereophile.com the V90 is affordable and measures impeccably and I can't see anything wrong with it. Yet if you read Musical Fidelity V90 DAC review | What Hi-Fi? they claim it 'lacks bass' and 'excitement'.
You can contrast with something many view as a reference Benchmark DAC2 HGC D/A processor/headphone amplifier Measurements | Stereophile.com. It's better in some measurements but -130dB vs -140dB type of difference. The benchmark is certainly more linear at the low end where you cannot hear it anyway but for a nearly 10x price differential you would have a hard time to tell them apart in a blind test.
IMO both are very well engineered. Others may disagree.
You can contrast with something many view as a reference Benchmark DAC2 HGC D/A processor/headphone amplifier Measurements | Stereophile.com. It's better in some measurements but -130dB vs -140dB type of difference. The benchmark is certainly more linear at the low end where you cannot hear it anyway but for a nearly 10x price differential you would have a hard time to tell them apart in a blind test.
IMO both are very well engineered. Others may disagree.
Common mode chokes, differential mode chokes, pi filters, ferrites, layout etc. plenty of designs and information about power supplies out there...
Again ask your self why PCs work with often come of the cheapest worse performing power supplies you can imagine, the digital part works perfectly...
galvanic isolation for the DAC from the main source of the streamed data (or CD drive) and a decent power supply for it is not hard to do these days, what is hard is for some people to accept that digital is the superior source......
Again ask your self why PCs work with often come of the cheapest worse performing power supplies you can imagine, the digital part works perfectly...
galvanic isolation for the DAC from the main source of the streamed data (or CD drive) and a decent power supply for it is not hard to do these days, what is hard is for some people to accept that digital is the superior source......
No, sorry, this was a couple of years ago. He actually bought two, of successive models, and wouldn't you know it, the later one wasn't quite as good! Manufacturers, they just keep fiddling with things, hopefully to make a device better, but sometimes to save costs - experimenting may be worthwhile.
Now, a key part of his approach was to insert an active buffer between the Cowon and the Naim integrated amp - in other words he reduced the loading on the output of the player, the current drawn to drive the next stage, and this seemed to be key. I tried listening to the Cowon directly driving normal headphones, and this did not work - that is, the power needed to drive the headphones caused too much degradation of the sound.
Hi and thanks again.
But on this basis it seems that is more difficult to make bad sounding digital than good one. Still i see a big debate about sound from digital dacs/interfaces even among professionals.
All testimonials for marketing products ? what a world ...
Seriously ... all is good ?
Thanks again, gino
Hi and yes ... this is exact my question. They are hearing things ?
I guess that they use identical rigs to test the equipment.
And they get different results.
i am quite ignorant but if i unit has great performance in the lab this means that is indeed well designed and built. This is sure.
But still also in the digital section of this forum i read "listening impressions" comments. So i get confused. Very.
When music is involved maybe i get too emotional and less rational ...
Thanks again, gino
Most recordings for many, many years have been done in digital...... So there is a good chance that even if the end result is an analogue source the original is digital🙂
Somewhere on here are some results of listening tests where the music was put through ADC-DAC and no one could tell.......
Somewhere on here are some results of listening tests where the music was put through ADC-DAC and no one could tell.......
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